In the next couple of weeks, Northwest symphonies are reaching out to the gamers. The Port Angeles and Seattle Symphonies will both be showcasing video game music in upcoming concerts and while lush orchestral music is now present in many game soundtracks, it’s taken quite a while to get there.

A military band that entertained Northwest troops heading off to the Korean War and played the dedication of Grand Coulee Dam will close their music books for good this weekend. The military is deactivating the 560th Air Force Band, based out of Spokane.

Author Michael Walker says that by the end of the 1960s, you could fairly say there were two generations of baby boomers: those who had experienced that decade's peace-and-love era of music firsthand, and those who learned about it from their older brothers and sisters.

Carole King initially found it extremely difficult to navigate the social hierarchies of high school. The Grammy Award-winning songwriter was a few years younger than her fellow classmates and was often dismissed as being "cute."

Music + Culture

11:46 am

Fri June 21, 2013

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Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with sculpture, drawing, photography and performance. His new book isHelguera's Artunes. You can see more of his work at Artworld Salon and on his own site.

Not everyone gets to celebrate his or her 19th birthday the way Conrad Tao will: On June 11, he'll release a major-label debut album and curate the first day of his own three-day new music festival in Brooklyn. But if any musician is primed for such a workload at this age, Tao might just be the one.

Jazz musicians from around the country will gather on Sunday to honor a musician who didn’t sell a lot of records, but influenced three generations of jazz guitarists. John LaChapelle died last month at the age of 91 in Richland, Wash.

Oleg Berg, an engineer and musician in the Ukraine, had a dream as a kid. He wanted to be able to take popular songs, the recordings of which were instantly recognizable, and invert their sound: making major keys minor and vice versa.

This week, the Northwest is hosting a historic event – historic, at least, in the word of accordion music. The top players from 19 countries are competing in Spokane at the World Trophy Accordion Championship. It's the first time the prestigious international competition has come to the United States. As Jessica Robinson reports, U.S. accordion players feel they've got something to prove.